Col de Saises, Cormet de Roseland & Col de Courcheval.
I woke up having had another restless night! I should have gotten over the nerves by now but I'm not sleeping well, if it continues like this it will become a major problem later in the week!
Alarm at 5:30 and down to breakfast, I have met a few of the fella's staying in the same hotels all week and 5 of us had gone out to dinner the night before so I sat down with a couple of those guys and who should come up and ask if she could join us? None other than Emma Pooley one of the greatest names in women's cycling! We had a good chat with her then got ourselves sorted out and cycled to the start line some 5 km from the hotel......let me tell you my garmin's temperature gauge read 4 degrees! It was overcast and very cold! I was wearing 3 layers and gloves but was still cold! This is gonna be a tough day!
The Col de Saises was a real drag, 18km with an average of 5% but because there is a reasonable flat bit and some downhill this is deceiving, it was averaging 8%+ on the Garmin and I was very glad to see the summit as my legs were starting to feel fatigued! The Cormet is a beautiful climb with a dam after about 10 km where it flattens out a little before ramping up again.
Finally I got to the last climb of the day just a matter of 25km to climb at an average of 7%! I have to say that it was an awful climb, lots of traffic and no views, really boring and soul destroying! The last 10km up to Courcheval was relentless, I was very glad to finish but was utterly exhausted!
All the time during the last 10km all I kept thinking was that if I'm struggling this much today then how on earth will I make it through the marathon stage tomorrow!
No comments:
Post a Comment